Editor Carrie Wood and Reporter Matt Phelps were honored with a combined six news-writing awards during the 123rd annual Washington Newspaper Publishers’ Association (WNPA) Better Newspaper Contest.

Reporter Newspaper group photographer Chad Coleman won six first-place awards for photography, including Photographer of the Year.

Wood and Phelps co-wrote “Juanita neighbors, PSE at odds over health risks from power lines,” winning second place for best health or medical story. The editor took second place for best educational story for “Sandburg students contact outer space,” a story about elementary kids talking with astronauts on the International Space Station.

Phelps won five editorial awards overall, the most of any reporter in the Reporter Newspaper group. “Kirkland man to head world’s largest solar plant,” took second place for best environmental story, “Community remembers Chuck Morgan who ‘lived his dream’ in Kirkland,” took second place for best personality profile – long, and Phelps also took third place for best comprehensive coverage of a single issue with his coverage of the Kirkland Annexation. In total, Sound Publishing newspapers earned 174 individual and staff awards in editorial and advertising. Awards were presented Oct. 1 at the WNPA’s annual conference and banquet in Wenatchee. Seventy-seven community newspapers in four circulation groups from around the state participated in this year’s Better Newspaper Contest, with a total of 2,492 individual entries submitted. The contest was judged by the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association.